n00b post

Hearing the sucky news come from California today has got me thinking about my own sexuality, and how I've never been entirely comfortable with it. I'll probably come back to my square one of being basically straight, but as is probably true with pretty much anyone, there's stuff that just doesn't seem to fall into place. The "straight" label feels like a loose fit...I could be bisexual but I've long tried to actively avoid any "swinging the other way" inclinations that came up (and they didn't come up all that often)...I tried asexual on for size and while it doesn't quite fit even with the most liberal definitions, I sort of wonder if I could have "asexual tendencies."

Perhaps the biggest thing is that I'm just scared of sexuality in general. I've long been afraid that a boyfriend would demand too much, or that I'd be harmed physically and emotionally, or that it would just be "weird" to have been involved with someone. I'm nearing the big 3-0 and I've just started to fool around over the last few months with a boyfriend for whom I never felt much lust, but whose adorable personality drew me in, and I started to feel some lust when we cuddled. And it doesn't feel too "weird" now that I have been involved with someone...but...well...why can't we give each other orgasms?

Thing is, I've never felt much lust for almost any guy. Only in one of my crushes do I recall fantasizing about experimenting with sexuality. Looks don't turn me on in guys, usually. I judge men's looks pretty much solely by aesthetics, and I tend to like toned but not jacked bods and boyish faces.

But occasionally, I've noticed myself getting physically stirred, vaguely aroused, by seeing a woman dressed in a conventionally "sexy" way with high heels and a short skirt. It's only happened a couple times though, and I've tried to repress it, and thought, well, maybe it's just because the thing that turns me on most is the theme/idea of sexuality and conventionally "sexy" women are a visual cultural representation of that.

I've never been comfortable with the thought that I might be bi/gay, even though I have no problem with other people being that way and live in Massachusetts with some notable sexual diversity in my family history (one bi, one gay, one trans who formerly identified as gay). Then again, I also have homophobes in my family, and a relative who won't take the bi relative seriously on her orientation until she's actually dated both sexes.

And, though I've never officially "crushed" on a girl, I've had intense excitement and anticipation of really interesting conversations with a couple of women (and at least one man) that almost kinda felt crush-like, in a way. Like I had a crush on the conversational dynamic we had or something. And with one of these women, I may have even felt a tiny twinge of jealousy when she mentioned getting a boyfriend. Could I have had crushes on women if I hadn't tried to actively take my mind off of female attractions?

I've had more crush-like feelings toward boys than toward girls...my first crush was on a boy, though I didn't recognize it as a crush...but it came rather late, when I was 13. My sisters got their first crushes (on boys) pre-puberty while I got mine over a year after menarche and didn't even know what it was. But I rarely am much attracted to anyone, either physically or romantically...and while romantically I seem to go more for men, I may actually be a little more physically attracted to women 'cause of that "short skirt effect." But not much physically attracted to either, really, beyond pure aesthetic judgments of plain old beauty. My strongest sexual orientation is toward...sexuality in the abstract, it seems.

I kind of think that maybe I should give up wondering if I'm normal, or wondering "what I am," and just explore whatever sexual tendencies come my way, keeping it to myself if I must.

But I do want to try and become more comfortable and confident in my sexuality, be it straight or "wavy" or A, rather than just being all scared and confusing myself about it. And that's why I'm here.

 

Thanks.

So far I've been looking up posts pertaining to bi-curiosity, bisexuality, and questioning orientation, wondering if I could find someone with feelings similar to mine and how they dealt with them. The closest I related to thus far was someone who was possibly bisexual and/or asexual (bi-romantic asexual?), but even then, I couldn't relate to the person's fantasy/solitary life, which struck me as quite asexual while my fantasies tend to be strongly sexual (and straight, though I wonder if I "forced" that. The idea of straight sex turns me on, but the reality of it...not as much.) It was largely my fantasy life that made me decide I wasn't asexual after having tried that identity on myself. Also, that one crush that I did have explicit thoughts about.

I'll keep exploring as the mood strikes me. Although, I almost wonder if tackling my fears around sexuality is at all futile.

 

I've been doing a lot more lurking, and I'm learning a lot and finding that a lot of people have issues around sexuality similar to mine, not only with regard to feelings/attractions, but also issues like how to get sexual relationships to "work" when you're new to having a partner.

A lot of people have purely physical/sexual attractions to the "wrong" sex while having a more comprehensive attraction to their "gender of preference," and it seems most of these people don't identify as bisexual, just bicurious or "not 100%" gay/straight but gay/straight enough. So I guess that's kind of the boat I'm in. Except, perhaps, for the apparent lack of a notable sexual response to men's bodies as such, as opposed to flirtation and touching. I do have pretty much every other kind of attraction to guys except for the visually induced sexual arousal. I even find (boyish/youthful) male faces more beautiful than female faces. My sense of human aesthetics is probably similar to that of men in ancient Greece: a young, toned, fine-faced male as the pinnacle of human beauty.

There's an old stereotype that women are just not as visually aroused as men, but I tend to doubt that's really true, especially in this day and age. Both my sisters seem to find people visually "hot," as have many women I've known. So I think my relative lack of visual arousal is a genuine quirk. I did try, as a teenager, to "fit in" by joining in with my sister in rating the "cuteness" of male athletes, but I think even then my judgments were aesthetic, mostly face-based.